What is green strawberry? Where does the plant grow? What can be said about the beneficial properties of green strawberries? Answers to these and other questions can be found in our material.
Strawberry green - description
This perennial wild plant belongs to a large family of Rosaceae. It is a stunted shoot that reaches a maximum height of 20 cm. Green strawberry has a brown rhizome with a branched network of accessory processes. Ground shoots are insignificant in thickness, have a creeping character. The stems contain branches at the top. Leaves of green strawberry basal with notches along the edge. Their front side has a light green tint. The inner part of the leaves is smooth, grayish-green.
Where does green strawberry grow ?
The plant is distributed in numerous European countries. There is green strawberry (half-tree) in Central Asia, Siberia, and Eastern Europe. You can see its shoots in forest zones and forest-steppe. Most often, colonies of green strawberries are formed at the edges, glades flooded with sunbeams. There is a plant in a hilly area, on clearings. In rare cases, in thickets of bushes, nearby steppe roads.
Fruit
Flowers of green strawberries develop on pedicels that form corymbose inflorescences. The latter have a white color and are large in size. False fruits develop here in the form of juicy, soft in structure berries of a bright red hue. They appear after flowering plants. The true fruit of green strawberries is the miniature seeds that are contained in the pulp.
The berries of the plant are spherical in shape. Their weight reaches an average of 1-2 grams. Differ in especially saturated aroma in comparison with garden wild strawberry. Berries are difficult to separate from the calyx. Often break down with her.
Chemical composition
Green strawberries (forest strawberries) have an extremely rich chemical composition. There is a wide range of vitamins, carbohydrates, tannins. Essential oil, organic acids, phosphorus salts are present in the leaves of the plant.
What is the mineral content of green strawberries? The fruits of the plant are rich in sugar, which is about 15% of their mass. There are pectin substances - about 1.7%. The amount of ascorbic acid in the leaves is 280 milligrams per 100 grams of raw materials, and in the fruits - 90 milligrams. The shoots of the plant are rich in zinc, copper, chromium, manganese, and iron salts.
Beneficial features
Specialists who studied the quality of the plant came to the conclusion that green strawberries have a light diuretic, laxative and choleretic effect on the human body. Drugs based on it exhibit sedative, astringent, wound healing, anti-inflammatory activity.
The fruits of the plant are used in the development of skin ailments. They are also used to normalize the functioning of the organs of the gastrointestinal tract. The properties of the substances contained in the berries contribute to the treatment of rheumatic manifestations, the elimination of symptoms of joint diseases, nervous exhaustion, anemia, hypertension.
The people noticed that eating the fruits of green strawberries makes it possible to quickly quench thirst and increase appetite. External use of berries positively affects the elimination of age spots, all kinds of acne, eczema, freckles. Infusions of dried fruits are used for scurvy, colitis, hypertension, gastritis and cholecystitis.
Vegetable juice is considered an excellent cosmetic product. Use it to regulate salt metabolism. From time immemorial, an aqueous infusion based on juice removed an unpleasant odor from the oral cavity, removed periodontal disease and stomatitis. Masks of green strawberries nourish the skin and allow you to deeply cleanse your face.
Leaf tea
To prepare a drink, it is necessary to dry the raw materials in the shade. Before proceeding to drying the leaves, the latter should be wrinkled in the palms of the hands. Such a solution will allow the juice of the plant to stand out. Then the raw materials must be laid out on a plane and covered with a piece of wet tissue, which contributes to the activation of fermentation processes.
Once the leaves have dried, you can proceed to the procedure for brewing tea. A few pinches of raw materials are placed in a teapot and poured with boiling water. The composition is covered with a lid and infused for 15-20 minutes.
The use of tea from the leaves of green strawberries helps to eliminate the manifestations of urolithiasis. The tool is suitable for the treatment of anemia, liver ailments, elimination of pathologies of the digestive organs. As practice shows, such tea is good for hypertension, cystitis, gout. If there are kidney stones, the drug is consumed three times a day, one glass each, as an alternative to regular tea.
Jam
To make jam from the berries of green strawberries, it is enough to fill them with sugar in equal proportions, and then leave alone for 5-6 hours. This time is enough for the fruits to release the maximum possible amount of juice.
A container with berries must be put on medium heat. Boil the composition should be no more than 5 minutes. In this case, it is extremely important to periodically remove the resulting foam. Next, the pan should be removed from the heat, cool the raw materials and cover with a cloth on top. In this state, the basis of future jam must be left for about 10 hours.
Next, the container must again be put on fire. As soon as the jam begins to boil, you need to remove it from the stove and cool for an hour. In conclusion, it is enough to distribute the resulting composition to sterilized banks and cork with lids.
The secrets of traditional medicine
From time immemorial, strawberries have been used by people to treat the following ailments:
- Gout - take the fruits of the plant in its purest form. For the disappearance of the manifestations of the disease, it is enough to eat about 0.5-1 kg of berries per day. A positive effect occurs in about 10-15 days.
- Diseases of the cardiovascular system - fresh berries are taken several every day, combining them with milk and honey.
- Gastrointestinal tract ailments - fresh berry juice is consumed in a quarter cup 3-4 times a day. An exception is gastritis with high acidity, in which it is forbidden to eat the fruits of the plant.
- Anemia - an infusion based on a tablespoon of dried berries is taken 1 glass several times a day before meals.
- Hemorrhoids, uterine bleeding - a few tablespoons of fresh berries are poured with boiling water and allowed to infuse for 2 hours. Take the drug inside 4 times a day, about 200 grams.
Contraindications
Green strawberries are absolutely not recommended for women during the period of bearing a child. Also, fresh berries are forbidden to eat for people who suffer from gastritis with high acidity. Since the fruits of the plant contain a significant amount of small seeds, they must be excluded from their diet for those who suffer from chronic appendicitis.
There is a separate category of people who have an individual intolerance to active substances in the composition of green strawberries. All kinds of allergic manifestations come first in the form of skin itching, the appearance of redness and rashes on the surface of the epidermis. In these cases, it is better to abandon the use of the fruits of the plant. However, it is not at all necessary to exclude from the diet healing infusions and teas based on dried leaves.
Growing
Before the appearance of nutmeg strawberries in the domestic expanses, the plant was harvested in forests and fields, planting in gardens. At that time, strawberries were called green strawberries. After the spread of various varieties of cultivated plants, wild berries were no longer cultivated.
Nevertheless, green strawberries continue to be actively collected in places of its natural growth. This happens because the plant produces a more impressive crop than the garden variety. The fruits of wild strawberries do not give bitterness in the case of making jam. When frozen, berries remain sweeter.